1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to a media transfer mechanism applicable to scanners or printers, and in particular relates to a media transfer mechanism that can handle two-sided operations of the media.
2. Related Art
Scanners and printers are now widely used by individuals and offices for scanning, printing, copying, saving or facsimile of documents. They play very important roles nowadays.
This kind of products, such as fax machines, printers, scanners or multi-function printers (MFP), process at least one side of media. When both sides of media must be scanned, read or printed, in addition to being handled manually, some handling mechanisms incorporated in the machines have been developed. Some related patents are disclosed, such as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,550,572, 4,970,661, 4,785,317, 6,647,239 and 5,806,999. Though the mechanisms of prior arts can achieve two-sided media handling in the scanners or printers, they have the same drawbacks of complicated mechanisms that make the machines bulky and the maintenance quite difficult. Also, when transferring the second sides of the media, too many components may easily cause paper jam and wrinkles to the media, which would causes inconvenience to the users.